Bryn Mawr
Classical Review 04.06.17

Announcement: Johns Hopkins University Graduate Program

With permission of
Professor Giulia Sissa, we are making available a "Vision Statement" and a
description of the innovative program that she and Marcel Detienne have
introduced at Johns Hopkins University since their arrival last year.
This is being distributed as part of the ongoing conversation on the
future of graduate education in classics initiated by the Department of
Classical Studies of the University of Pennsylvania. See also BMCR 4.3.2
(May 1993), for Dan Hooley's description of the new program in place at
the University of Missouri (gopher browsers can test their skill by
searching BMCR for the string "Hooley"). Both programs implicitly speak
against the unspoken consensus that all graduate programs in classics
need to resemble each other, like Tolstoy's happy families (or Nabokov's
unhappy ones?). If there are other venturesome programs that would be
enlightening to see described, BMCR will gladly circulate them.

VISION STATEMENT

The mission of the Johns Hopkins
University has always included both teaching and research. In this
context, the Department of Classics has, since its foundation, played an
outstanding role. Just a few words on the past before speaking of the
future: as is the case for other important fields in the humanities and
social sciences, in Classics as well, The Johns Hopkins University
organised one of the first 'modern' departments. And this institution of a
science of Antiquity was inspired by the most effective model of
scholarship: the German seminar, which is precisely both teaching and
research.

Now, what can we do today with this prestigious tradition
and with the current department? The first particularity of this field,
'classics', is its broadness both in terms of length of time and in terms
of specialised approaches. The history of ancient societies covers
several centuries (from the eight century, BC, to the fourth century, AD);
the comprehension of these societies requires multiple skills, from
epigraphy to philosophy, from numismatics to the history of science. In
the XIXth century conception of culture, a wide and virtually complete
competence was expected from one scholar: the perfect philologist. And a
classics department was supposed to encompass the entire set of
disciplines in order to form perfect philologists.

Today, a
department of classics must choose a main area and a main orientation.
Everywhere, indeed, the classical branches have become too specialised for
only one person to master them all. But above all, the study of Antiquity
has been influenced by the most important transformations in methods and
criticism. This is why we intend to give greater importance to certain
approaches, which we consider to be the most appropriate to our time. On
the one hand, comparison between the Greeks and other living or ancient
societies (African, Indian, Egyptian etc); on the other hand, interaction
between the Greek treatment of questions or objects and the modern or
contemporary approaches to the same objects and questions.

In sum:
we would like to combine a very strong formation in languages with an
engagement with other scholars such as anthropologists, philosophers or
historians, in order to give a comparative impulse to our work. But what
kind of comparison? Not the research of analogies, not the description of
typologies, but rather the analysis of concepts, categories, and issues as
they appear, if they appear, in different societies. It seems that the
Greeks are an excellent point of departure from which to ask questions
about political thought, religion, mythology, gender, ethics, and
sciences.

FOR AN ANTHROPOLOGY ALONG WITH THE GREEKS

Since anthropological knowledge was first officially institutionalized
at the end of the nineteenth century, it has always turned toward Greece.
The first anthropologists posed their questions to the Greeks, who seemed
to them both similar to ancient societies which had been discovered by
ethnologists, and, at the same time, very different with respect to the
modernity of the forms of rationality which were produced between the
eighth century, B.C., and the fourth century, A.D. At first, under the
influence of Marcel Mauss (from 1910 to 1940), anthropologists together
with a few Hellenists -- for example, Louis Gernet -- tried to recognize
in the historical unconscious of these societies the basic frameworks of
thought. They attempted to analyze the principal schemas which gave these
institutions form, oriented their procedures and gestures, and established
social relationships during the course of a long history. For example,
shouldn't the laws of mental activity be sought in the "mythology," which
so
many archaic societies shared as a form of thought?

With respect
to ancient societies, anthropological analysis addresses itself to the
analysis of the great subterranean institutions which make up the armature
of thought, and of Greek and Roman culture. These investigations have
permitted the recognition, for example, of the central role played by
sacrifice throughout the history of culture as an operative model, and as
a religious, social, and political phenomenon. A comparison with India and
Africa has yielded important results. And it is also to anthropology,
particularly in its Lévi-Straussian formulation, that we owe the
first
structural analyses of Greek mythology, as well as a series of works
which, in the United States, and particularly at Harvard and Princeton,
resounded in new ways, and inspired convergent projects.

There are
several reasons for this anthropological orientation of historians of
ancient societies. In the first place, anthropologists were the first to
compare cultural productions and forms of thought. Anthropology was, so to
speak, born comparative,
whereas comparative history generally appeared with great difficulty.
Second, anthropology, whose object was the variability of human cultures,
invited historians and ethnologists working on similar objects to join the
construction of the best "comparables." This perspective requires that
each scholar deepen the understanding of his or her own field. Historians
and ethnologists, comparing several cultures, could "put to the test"
configurations limited to just a few variables in objects, which are easy
to isolate and observe in their various states.

We think that we
will be able to undertake a real anthropological study along with the
experimental riches offered by a culture which is as complex as is the
culture of Greece throughout the course of an entire millennium.

FOR A DIALOGICAL HISTORY

Besides this anthropological
orientation, the department will choose another major line of development:
maintaining a constant 'dialogue' with contemporary issues. From the point
of view of today's culture and intellectual debate, ancient societies can
be especially relevant interlocutors, in different ways. First of all,
from our standpoint, we can ask new questions about those societies.
Political models, for instance, or problems concerning gender, sexuality
and ethics in general can be better under stood and even discovered as
problems in Greece and in Rome, if we take them seriously in our
societies. In recent decades, many young scholars have reevaluated the
richness of ancient thought through the possibility of finding in it
anticipations of current and sometimes burning discussions. In the same
perspective, but taking the opposite point of view, we can say also that
antiquity offers very often a remarkable background to our debates. For
instance, we appreciate the richness of the postmodern concern with the
power or the weakness of reason, if we don't forget the analogous
questions posed by ancient skepticism. We can put our cultural situation
in perspective if we compare it to that of late antiquity, when the
competition among different philosophical systems offered the spectacle
of a crisis of theoretical models.

A more traditional, but not less
interesting way of confronting antiquity as a living society is to pay
attention to the contemporary thinkers who appropriate and incorporate
Greek thought in their own theories. While philosophers like Nietzsche,
Heidegger, and Derrida 'go back' to Greece, while psychoanalysis draws
models of subjective complexity from Sophocles or Aristotle, classicists
should not just ignore or despise this, but rather challenge and criticize
the uses and abuses of what they are supposed to know better than anyone
else. With a conference scheduled in September 1993 on 'Apollo versus
Dionysos. Genealogy of a fascination', the department will perform an
experiment: a reflection on the destiny of an ancient theme - the
antithesis between two major divinities in theological and philosophical
terms - not only in ancient times, but also in the painting of the
Renaissance and in the culture of the nineteenth century. The Johns
Hopkins University offers, furthermore, an extraordinary opportunity to
work in the field of the history of science and more particularly in the
history of medicine. The Classics Department would like to become a
reference point, in addition to and in collaboration with the Department
of the History of Medicine, Science and Technology, for all the students
who, from different backgrounds, are interested in an historical approach
to contemporary scientific questions. Why can such an approach be useful?
Because if we place the debate on the origin of life, for instance,
in the perspective of the controversy on the spontaneity of generation,
we can analyze the arguments involved not only as a positive and purely
factual way of confronting the issue, but also as a way of repeating or
displacing already existing 'patterns'
of arguments. Being aware of this recurrence allows us to predict the
obstacles which prevent mutual persuasion today. More generally, if we
assume that western life sciences have developed in constant dialogue with
the ancients - a dialogue which means either fidelity or criticism - we
will probably encounter those patterns of arguments and of explanations
every time we try to understand why the terms of a certain question came
to be what they are. The 'viscosity' of Greek ways of thinking, their
capacity to undertake transformations and to adjust to experiments
explains, for instance, why the modern comprehension of sexual difference
is accepted in terms of homology plus inferiority.

THE
PROGRAM

The graduate program prepares students for teaching and
research in classics. One of its most distinctive features is its breadth.
In addition to a thorough knowledge of the Greek and Latin languages,
courses and examinations in five fields are require d: Greek literature,
Roman literature, Ancient History, Linguistics and Archaeology.
Instruction in ancillary disciplines such as palaeography, epigraphy, and
numismatics, is offered either as part of regular courses or, from time to
time, in seminars devoted to these subjects. While the Department, in
keeping with its traditions, emphasizes careful preparation in the
fundamentals of classical scholarship, related courses in such Departments
as Anthropology, History, Philosophy, History of Art, Near Easter n
Studies, and the Humanities Center are available. Graduate students in
Classics have often taken courses in these Departments and have thus
followed an interdisciplinary approach to the humanities which is also
traditional at Hopkins.

FACILITIES

The Department has
excellent facilities. The most important of these is the classical
collection in the Milton S. Eisenhower Library, which contains about
45,000 volumes. The Library receives 350 serial titles in classics, not
including monographic series. The Thomas G. Machen Collection of
incunabula and Fine Printed Books in Eisenhower Library includes the first
printed edition of Herodotus (Venice, 1474), an exceptionally fine copy of
Homer (Florence, 1488), and a very good copy of Pliny's Historia Naturalis
(Florence, 1472), considered the finest example of the work of Nicolas
Jenson. Eisenhower also has several dozen papyrus fragments. Hopkins has
two other Special Collections containing important Greek and Latin
incunabula, the Garrett Library in
Evergreen House and the George Peabody Library in Mt. Vernon Place. The
latter also has about 3300 classical texts, including the complete Loeb
Library. The Department also has a small seminar library, the basis of
which is the personal library of the Swiss classicist Walter Wili
(1900-1975). He bequeathed it to his former student and colleague Georg
Luck, who in turn donated it to the Department along with a collection of
his own books. In recent years, graduate students have raised money for an
endowment for the library. New books are added periodically. The
Department owns the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae and has implemented the
Harvard search programs on the Departmental Macintosh computers. In
addition, the Department has ready access to the University mainframe
computers. The Department operates its own Archaeological Museum which has
recently (1989) been renovated. Although the collection is used primarily
for teaching purposes, many objects merit permanent display. The Attic
red-figured kylikes by Oltos, Phintias, Epiktetos, and Douris are justly
renowned. Ellen Reeder Williams' The Archaeological Collection of The
Johns Hopkins University (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984)
provides a fine survey of the collection.

OPPORTUNITIES

The Department is one of the smallest of the major Classics departments
in the United States. It can best serve the strongly motivated student who
has well-defined interests. For such a student, the breadth of the program
provides an opportunity to round out preparation for teaching and
research. He or she can also use the Department as a base from which to
seek opportunities for study and research in other places. In the academic
year 1987-88, three Hopkins graduate students were affiliated with the
American School of Classical Studies in Athens. The Department also
maintains a membership in the American Academy in Rome. Although a
separate degree in Classical Archaeology is no longer awarded, the Hopkins
tradition in this field continues. In recent y ears, graduate students
have participated in excavations at Morgantina (Sicily), Kourion (Cyprus),
Sotira (Cyprus), and Kommos (Crete). The recently established Hopkins-USC
Exchange Program in Classics makes it possible for Hopkins graduate
students to spend one or two semesters at USC, where the strengths of the
Department of Classics complement those of Hopkins' Department.
Cross-registration at UCLA is possible, as is utilization of the resources
of The Getty Museum. The Department also has an exchange relationship with
the Classics Department at Catholic University, which is especially strong
in patristics and palaeography. The Departments of Classics and of Near
Eastern Studies sponsor Ancient Studies Colloquia once or twice each year.
These Colloquia,
which have recently been devoted to such themes as folklore,
anthropological approaches to ancient studies, and ancient law, bring
together scholars from Hopkins and other universities. Readings are
distributed in advance, and the format of the colloquia
is designed to encourage participation by graduate students. The Johns
Hopkins University Press is a center of publication in classics. It
publishes the American Journal of Philology, founded in 1880, the oldest
classical journal in the United States, and
AJP Monographs in Classical Philology. It also has a distinguished list
in classics. The Humanities Editor, Eric Halpern, did graduate work in
classics at Oxford.

FINANCIAL AID

First-year students
who appear to be unusually well qualified and who have had teaching
experience can be appointed to a Teaching Assistantship, which carries a
full tuition scholarship and a stipend of $7,000. Scholarships of up to
$5,000 in addition to full tuition are also available. There is also an
internal competition for special Dean's fellowships. The Department enters
its most promising applicants in this competition. Graduate students are
encouraged to apply for national and international fellowships, and, in
recent years, have had considerable success. The Department awards
Robinson Travel Grants annually. They support summer study, research and
field work in Europe.